There have been a few ugly hits in this year’s playoffs, but this one from Brooks Orpik on Olli Maatta may the worst of the bunch.
Orpik with a completely unnecessary, dangerous hit pic.twitter.com/ctlPfDT7ZM
— Sons of Penn (@SonsofPenn) May 1, 2016
Another angle:
https://twitter.com/myregularface/status/726580052188602372
That’s just bad. Orpik started to stride to his right to follow the puck, but quickly changed his mind and altered his skating to his left towards Maatta. He then extended his body to make contact with Maatta up around the head. You can clearly see the moment where Orpik goes against his initial reaction to play the puck and to instead deal out an illegal hit.
Perhaps the worst part of this his is how unnecessary the hit was. There are plenty of opportunities during a game to put a hit on an opponent. There’s really no need for Orpik to go out of his way and hit someone so illegally behind the play.
Orpik has always been a player who plays “on the edge” as analysts like to say. That style can result in some ugly plays and this is certainly one of them. Unfortunately, the NHL doesn’t like to hand out accurate punishments during the playoffs, so Orpik may get off with another tap on the wrist.
